Our Last Day in Osaka was with mixed feelings. We went to the Osaka Botanical Garden in a place called Nagai, by the metro. We have been using the Osaka Unlimited Pass for the last two days. So, this helped us a lot as it included the fares for all trains, trams, buses and many attractions.
The garden was impeccably maintained, and there were beautiful flowering plants from all over the world. There were Chinese Roses, Chrysanthemums, Orchids, German Iris' and Cherry blossoms among the 160,000 other species of plants. We walked around the place and took a lot of pictures. One of the many interesting things I noticed was that there were many people, both young and old, drawing and painting on a canvas. There were also many old people, some of them even handicapped, who seemed to be locals (I couldn't talk to them because of the language barrier, although I would've loved to). These people were taking pictures with SLR cameras. It was nice to see so many senior citizens pursuing their passions.
Later, we went on a quick tour of the Osaka Museum of Natural History. They had real skeletons of blue whales there. The exhibits were really nice, but unfortunately, most of the explanations were in Japanese, so we didn't really enjoy much.
After lunch at Denny's Restaurant, we went to the Tennoji Zoo. Here, we saw animals like polar bears, giraffes, owls, elephants, and a lot of birds. This wasn't really new to us (we've been to a lot of zoos), but the Zoo was not great as animals were in relatively small enclosures.
One other observation - there were groups of school children (even some preschool kids), who were on field trips to the zoo, the natural history museum and even the botanical garden. We have seen so many such groups not just here, but in other attractions in Osaka. One of the staff in a Hotel told us that their kids go to regular picnics and field trips.
Tomorrow we leave for Nara - the ancient capital of Japan.
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